Bathroom Progress

Nothing too exciting is happening other than a lot of plumbing, the walls are starting to come back up and the bathtub is up. I hope we're at a point where pieces start to come together rather quickly as the husband might lose it completely if he has to keep sharing a bathroom with me (and all the workmen).

I like these pictures because you can see the burn marks on the original plaster and lathe. We think that this was originally the kitchen and that this is the impression from the original stove. It would be scary if we didn't expect everything in our house to be wackadoodle. In contrast to the electrical, the burned boards seem rather pedestrian.

A Wander on the West Side of the Canal

What I've Been Up To

I've been up to a lot lately and while I'm a bit sleep deprived and certainly lighter in the wallet, our many projects are moving along nicely.

You wouldn't notice too much action in the bathroom and that's because they've been patching the bathroom below us from all the damage in the wall. They've started on the plumbing and reframing some of the walls. We now have all of the fixtures (sans toilet) and tile waiting to go and I think have made all the major choices.



At work, we launched a website . When I pitched my vision for this department, no one said anything about a website. I'm a big believer in digital outreach and a well curated list of resources but building a website from scratch with a major deadline was not what I signed up for with this position. Luckily, I had a great technical team who was hugely supportive, patient, and willing to catch my typos and bad ideas. I now maintain a professional blog where I write about education and not my bathroom.


My stuffed staph infection that Ab gave me when I was sick a few years ago. Staph watches over meet and is an instant conversation starter that signals to people that I am not the serious, scientific side of the Academy.

Work has very much settled down and we are just executing all of the programs and plans that I designed in the Fall. I can legitimately say "we" because I was able to hire someone to run one of the programs in the department and that has made a world of difference. I feel a tremendous amount of pride in my after school program and often get a bit teary when I talk about it.

I've also read some amazing books since the holidays. Everyone is sick of hearing about the
Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan but I also read Susan Collin's Hunger Games Trilogy, Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken; Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stonee; Hazel Rowley's Franklin and Eleanor (which was not nearly as good as Doris Kerns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time and many more. The Kindle app on the iPad has made me into an even more voracious reader, a feat I never thought possible. The weather has been so cold and dreary that the only true solace is a nest of blankets on the couch and a good book.



I also read Sam Kean's great book "The Disappearing Spoon" and then got to meet him at a talk he gave at work!

And for a bit of randomness, I wandered around on that freak 60 degree day and found this amazing homage to Michelle Obama on a shopping bad at Pearl River:



And we went bowling for a birthday and I found that the husband can really bowl.

End of Day 2

So today I hauled a lot of trash and then went to work. That is all.

Meow.

A silver oak piece of furniture to store stuff in and frame around the medicine cabinet.


This may be too blonde (from restoration hardware)


With just a slightly ornate train rack for towels from Restoration Hardware?






Now I'm just cutting and pasting in the whole West Elm catalogue

At the End of the Day You're another Day Older

It's been a productive day one. All the tile came off the wall, the sink is out, and most of the fixtures are purchased. Tomorrow is more demo and more hauling. The dumpster is set to appear at 9am. Our building is taking bets on how long it will take the neighbors to fill it to the brim with their own stuff.

I originally misordered the first tub so trooped over to Park Slope Plumbing to fix my mistake and see what else I could order. I worked with Bob Gomez and he was pretty amazing, knew the inventory really well and actually gave me his opinion. The biggest challenge was the tub as we wanted a deep soaker that will fit in a small space and be acrylic. We had a tough time finding something that maintained the size and wasn't over our budget.



Bob found this guy from Fine Fixture at the same price as the original Kohler Archer that we originally chose. It's the only tub they make and is comes in very limited sizes (I think small and big).

Next we moved on to the vanity. (You have to imagine that the husband and I are emailing, sending pictures, and talking on the phone and Bob is patiently waiting). We both liked the metal console but most of what we found was extremely expensive. The sink we both fell in love with was "at least $7,000". We told him we wanted a metal console but "less old lady" and he immediately pulled this one from Empire Industries. I'm not sure how it escaped my googling but I didn't find it online. (The website is empire-industries.com if anyone is looking) We loved this one in the cheaper white china top and it came in our size. No brainer. And the cheapest one that we liked. Huzzah!



By the way, here's what an "at least $7K" sink looks like. Swooooon! It's Kallista's ONE.



You may notice that I'm not giving specifics on price. It just makes me squicky to talk about money. I'll say that Bob gave us really good prices which I think we a reflection of their usual business practices, the fact that we bought everything together, and dropped our contractors name a lot. The best part of Bob was that we went through the show room and I pointed out things that I liked and he pointed out things that worked with what we had chosen all together. When I balked at price he found similar things at lower price points and helped me decide what was worth spending money on. For example, everyone will see the sink faucet but not the tub faucet. Or the fact that the lines of the spout were really lovely on the more expensive version, but a tub spout isn't expensive so spend the $50 to get what you want.

Ah, I'll show you those:


Sink Faucet by Danze


Tub spout by Groeh


Shower Handle by Danze

We need to get accessories and a toilet but the accessories can wait and we can't do anything until the floor comes up and a plumber looks at the dreaded toilet. We didn't find anything terribly exciting behind the walls other than things being overdone in some areas and underdone in others. There was something that looked like fire damage but it was so rotted out with water that it was hard to tell. Surprise!

I also cleaned out a lot of basement. I have to admit that throwing out other people's unwanted stuff is cathartic.

The destruction begins

I opened my front door this morning to 5 guys (and one lady) and all their gear ready to destroy our bathroom. It is very slow going but as they're destroying I'm cleaning out the basement.

I suspect that the previous owner, the one responsible for the crazy toilet, was a bit of a hoarder and today I'm hauling all his old stuff up and out. Unfortunately, he seemed to be a hoarder of boards with rusty nails and broken IKEA furniture. I'm pretty sure I should go get a tetanus shot this afternoon.